Amun-Re is ostensibly about building up empires in ancient Egypt. Of course, what it is truly about is maximizing your score by manipulating the mechanics of the game over two independant phases while minimizing the scoring potential of your rivals. But hey, isn't that what all games are ultimately about?

Components: This game is gorgeous. An attractive solid board, quality chits and bits (including plastic pyramids and 'Chiclet' building blocks), a well laid-out manual. The graphics and colours suit the theme to a 'T'. It even comes with handy Player Aids (eliminating the need to download them from here).

The board and cards contain symbols that give you the information you need at a glance. This is the type of component design that should be the benchmark for the industry.

Rules: The rulebook is gorgeous and well-designed. It has full-colour pictures throughout and many play-examples to demonstrate in-game situations. The only beef I have with the rules (and only because they did everything else so well) is that while it is great for learning the game, it is not neccesarily easy to find what you are looking for when you need to verify/clarify a rule. Rio Grande Games does a better job of this with the Advanced Players Column (for lack of a better term) - a sidebar to the rules that just offers quick and dirty info.

The Board: The board is divided into 15 provinces, each of which may contain a variety of features: Farms for farmers, ability to buy Power Cards, Income (either fixed or dependant on camels) or temples. Also, each province may contain a bonus that is bestowed immediately upon acquiring it: free Power Cards, free Building Blocks or free gold. Over the course of each Kingdom, each player will acquire 3 provinces.

How To Play: The game is broken into two halves - Old Kingdom/New Kingdom - that play identically. Scoring occurs at the end of each Kingdom.

Each turn, a number of random Provinces equalling the number of players will be drawn. These are the Province available for acquisition for this turn. Players take turns placing their bid marker on a value on the Province card (the differences between these values go up as the values go up 0,1,3,6,10,etc). If you are outbid on a Province, you must either increase your bid on that same Province, or switch to a different Province.

Once all bidding is complete (everybody is on their own Province), the players pay the amount they bid then put a marker on the Province they acquired and immediately receive any bonuses that that Province bestows.

The players then take turns purchasing improvements for their Provinces (farmers for the Farms, Power Cards based on limit, or Building Blocks to build Pyramids). The price of these goods go up based on how many they purchase of each type.

Then we go on to Sacrificing To Amun-Re: Each player secretly selects an amount of gold to offer up. A player may, inversely, steal from the offering plate to reduce the total sacrifice by 3. Once all players have chosen an amount, the sacrifices are totalled. This total is used to determine which temple space the Amun-Re temple will go to - thereby determining the balue of Temples in the provinces and the amount of gold each farmer will harvest. Players with few farmers and temples will probably attempt to steal from the offering to minimize the power of these elements, and those with a lot will try to drive it up.

Once the sacrifice is complete, the player that sacrificed the most will recieve 3 goods of their choice, the next player 2 and the 3rd player 1.

At the end of the third round, players score for the Old Kingdom. Scoring is based on sets of Pyramids constructed, the value of any Temples in the Provinces, and any bonuses earned from meeting the condition of Power Cards.

At the end of scoring for the Old Kingdom, everything is removed from the board, except for Pyramids and Building Blocks - these remain for the next stage. The provinces that were used in the Old Kingdom are now the only ones available for the New Kingdom. Play for the New Kingdom is exactly the same as it was for the Old Kingdom (except now certain Provinces are worth more due to the Pyramids).

Overall:My apologies if the above play description is hard to follow/understand. This game is much easier to learn than my ability to describe can handle. One quick play-through following the rules is usually enough to get people into the game. The trick lies in figuring out the relative value of each Province and not over- or under- bidding for them, and that - of course - comes with play.

This game is definitely an abstract soaked in theme (hi, Reiner!), but the theme works well with the carry-over of Pyramids to the second Kingdom. New players will have a hard time against veterans, as its hard to determine value until you've seen a few scoring rounds. Long-term planning pays off in this one, especially in the New Kingdom when the value of each Province can go up. Also, the benefit of Power Cards should never be understated. They can give you bonuses during game play, and also the potential to truly boost your score in the scoring phases.

This game is highly enjoyable, especially with Medium- to Heavy-Eurogamers, though light gamers may find some enjoyment with it as well. It is also a game that plays great the better you know your opponents. As with most auction games, the psychological game can be as fun as the mechanical one.

This is definitely one of Knizia's Top Ten, and a great addition to any collection.

Just a minor comment, where you speak about being outbid, you state that you must bid higher on the same province, or on a different province. To my knowledge, without use of a Power Card, you cannot immediately rebid on the same province; you must bid on a different one (you could later end up bidding on the first one again, if your bid on that different province was later topped).